DCS: MiG-25RBT Mod Announcement

WOW! amazing mod!

I am curious how the night photo reconnaissance was performance for this level of technology. Some reads talk about illumination bombs. not sure this work well

My guess would be using IR or radio detectors instead of regular cameras. That kind of technology was definitely around in the 70s and 80s.

I am curious how the night photo reconnaissance was performance for this level of technology. Some reads talk about illumination bombs. not sure this work well

Illumination bombs for ordinary films and infrared films without those bombs.

YEAHHHHHH!!!!

According to Jane's the public information given by Mikoyan OKB explicitly claims the MiG25RB series has demonstrated its 2.8 Mach speed limit whilst carrying "a full bomb load" and its supersonic cruise is 2.35 Mach for which it was specifically designed to fly long distances whilst carrying its war load.

It is also faster in time to climb to its flight ceiling north of 20,000m than a P series by two and a half seconds flying clean and about 3/4 of a second carrying 2000kg of bombs. These statements of climb performance are given by Mikoyan OKB as undertaken at 2.35 Mach, so presumably a period of level acceleration or shallow dives/zooms were involved in how the speed tests were performed but they are not described in detail. Mikoyan OKB makes no distinction on climb or speed performance for the P series but Belyenko said the only performance change carrying a load is its ceiling is 21,000m carrying four R40 missiles and 24,000m for two minutes carrying two R40 missiles.

Noteworthy Mikoyan makes the distinction the time to altitude is as 2.35 Mach, particularly since for example the Flanker is about three times faster to altitude, but its climb would be more like at 650kts. But then the Foxbat was initially mooted in 1959 in specific response to the Lockheed A11 designation spies got wind of (the Blackbird), ahead of the Valkyrie. It was known to be built almost entirely of titanium and would exceed Mach 3 and 80,000ft so the MiG25 had to be at high Mach at missile launch, within two minutes following a climb to ceiling to try to catch the Blackbird inside about 15km of its smerch before launching the only two R40 it can carry that high, that fast if it was to have any hope of interception. The truth was however, according to all the experts on both sides it was impossible but the career of the U2 overflying anywhere with a MiG25 was definitely over.

This is very different from how British and American public release information describes maximum warbird performance figures, which are achieved using specially prepared airframes and laboratory test conditions and whilst the resulting, inflated claims of service performance serve some propaganda role it would appear, most of the time it was really about achieving design requirements during contract bids, design requirements from unqualified sources like idealistic politicians which were either impossible to achieve or counterproductive to the mission role. In other words the Whitehouse and British tabloids wanted high flying jet fighters exceeding Mach 2 after a time when flying around like that will get you killed and survivable missions had become about low altitude, transonic performance and load bearing capacity, necessitating a completely different airframe design from high Mach performers. But if you wanted the funding you had to deliver that Mach 2+ claim the politicians demanded.

The F15 Eagle for example is speed restricted to 1.78 Mach, being designed for extreme transonic and fast subsonic aerial combat performance, determined with combat experience in Vietnam and elsewhere to be the real centre of fighter vs fighter warfare. High mach operation was found to be less important to fighter combat than transonic manoeuvrability and combat engagements were demonstrated in practise to consistently occur at much closer ranges than strategists believed when aerial combat missile ranges achieved BVR in the 60s. BVR is certainly a big part of modern aerial warfare but not to the exclusion of close weapons engagement (CWC) performance capability. The F15 has this in spades.

The way the F15A accomplished its FX speed requirement was by means of an engine management override switch. The engines required a mandatory full tear down maintenance immediately upon landing if this was used. In normal service it is really a 1.8 Mach fighter, which utterly accomplishes its air superiority mission superbly, high Mach is just superfluous to it but can be done in a one shot sortie like a WW3 scenario where it doesn't matter if you break the plane. The MiG25 speed capabilities are in fact described by Belyenko as similar operational doctrine, just faster benchmarks of 2.5 Mach normal max speed and 2.8 Mach only with special permission, but even then engines only had a 150hr service life.

The reason for the FX speed requirement was the MiG25, of which at the time little was known other than a speed performance well in excess of 2.5 Mach, so the FX requirement was to exceed 2.5 Mach. Other experts around here will know more detail than me, I can't remember if the speed test F15A (was it Streak Eagle or was that just the altitude test version?), it might've had all its equipment sets like fire control removed as is typical for these kind of factory tests, and flown as just a bare, stripped airframe with engines, fuel and a pilot, overriding the management system and destroying the engines during the run. I'm merely speculating about this part.

It does lead us to the infamous event over Jordan in which Israeli ground stations clocked a MiG25RB fleeing an intercept of F4 Phantoms doing 3.2 Mach headed back to Egypt in 1973. After reading the report transmitted to the CIA the Secretary of the USAF Robert Seamans declared the Russian MiG25 "the most potent interceptor in the world today."

According to Russian sources the record of that particular incident showed the MiG25 in question landed at its airbase with its engines completely destroyed and the entire airframe had to be scrapped due to damage from the flight. They described a phenomenon of "runaway rpm" or engine overspeeding to which the MiG25 was prone when pilots exceeded 2.5 Mach and the engines required careful throttle management above this speed. Belyenko described operational doctrine as aforementioned, 2.5 Mach speed restriction during normal missions and can only be exceeded with special permission, beyond which 2.8 Mach was airframe limitation before pieces started melting.

Engine overspeeding wasn't a unique phenomenon, IIRC the McDD A4 had a tendency to do it too and there was a pdf technical publication at a university site describing how this occurred in the engine, something about the engine feeding off itself due to internal conditions so that altering pilot inputs no longer controlled engine rpm and it accelerated by itself at full throttle until it broke. It was notable in that for a while the pilot was helplessly strapped to a plane with its engine completely out of control.

Part of what I'm trying to say is the reason for all these engine problems was an actual reason of way too much being asked of them, which is why I certainly hope what we don't see in further MiG25 DCS development is western performance adjustment from claimed figures to sim performance and lose all that Foxbat speed the minute you put an R60 on it. I feel satisfied of corroboration for the MiG25 speed capabilities being much less impacted by war loads than western composite-honeycombs designed to maximise transonic performance in their designs, like the F16. And maybe the F15 speed drops to like 1.5 Mach with a full load of AAMs but it can't normally exceed 1.8 Mach without the management override anyway, hit that and overspeed the engines and maybe it'll squeak past 2 Mach with a missile load. But official sources absolutely claim Russian MiGs, specifically MiG23ML and MiG25 of all types achieve their quoted maximum speed limitations whilst carrying full war loads. They're very specific about this.

Just like if someone does a MiG23MLD DCS module I expect to see it out accelerate an F16 whilst carrying a war load, as per explicit Mikoyan claims. At the least I'd want to see documentation or test results of why manufacturer claims are being dismissed.

Western appreciation of the MiG25 historically went from over-estimated to under-estimated in sudden, diametric extremes. As if discovering there is no Santa Claus ergo Satan lives, for some reason western media is always full of false dichotomies. The MiG wasn't designed using captured extra-terrestrial technologies (yes it was actually tabled in 1968 at the Pentagon), yet it also wasn't built in farmhouses using household implements. Yes, it used valve electronics not because solid state hadn't been invented in Russia yet but because transistorised electronics invented anywhere was not yet reliable enough for the high powered operation of the smerch and things like that, which was literally capable of cooking rabbit meat during ground testing and is described as burning through any contemporary ECM attempt with sheer wattage. Its old school elements were functional, not limited.

I just hope the module doesn't get warped by pop views of the plane, the western pop view is a poor one and even if the Russian pop view is a little over the top there has been few balanced renditions of it that aren't coloured and compared with an F15 when it should be designed like an island as a box-monocoque high mach type where the F15 is a composite-honeycomb transonic type so they aren't even in the same ballpark, which is okay because they don't have nearly the same mission and technically shouldn't even meet.

If I might add also worth hunting around various combat encounter reviews of Foxbats in Iraq kicking around, here they challenge pop figures for Foxbat performance at low altitude, describing supersonic dashes on the deck when Mikoyan lists the MiG25 as subsonic at sea level. They also describe much better handling in dogfight engagements at low altitude than were expected, whilst the Eagle is obviously superior in this realm the Foxbats proved competitive and became considered a greater threat than the MiG29, which was opposite of what the pre-war briefing had told them to expect. I'm sure with such huge fuel capacity its load would have a great deal to do with it but nickel steel box-monocoque is a real strong structure and it has a bag load of high speed thrust and tons of lift area.

Excited to be on! Can't wait to cruise at mach 2+

your 1st post text

Can I ask, from how many polys is this aircraft made?

Currently the body is sitting at about 386K polys :)

Hi everyone. We are still on track with the MiG-25RBT and the systems modelling. We have noticed a few questions that have been asked across facebook and in this thread which I feel are worth addressing.

Q: Does the MiG-25RBT carry any air-to-air missiles?

A: Contrary to online sources, the MiG-25RBT does not carry any radar or IR missiles.

Q: Is this mod going to have a clickable cockpit? (aka. High Fidelity)

A: Yes, the MiG-25RBT will be high fidelity and have a clickable cockpit.

Q: Have you considered releasing the MiG-25RBT as freeware to ED?

A: Any interaction of having the MiG-25RBT in the base game of DCS, whether as payware or freeware requires a license.

We will be posting an update soon on the systems we currently have been focusing on. Stay tuned. :)

Thanks cosmic. I appreciate you care about public question.

Q. how will be the interaction for photo reconnaissance files with users?

Q. Radar detected areas are send it automatic to headquarter. I read something about. that's correct for your module? if so, do you plan build a kind of command post dedicated for Mig-25? then we can target this building.

maybe a little early to ask. sorry

MiG-25RBT have general electronic recce system called SRS-13, this equipment don't have data link for data sending, whole recce info is recorded on magnetic tape. Variants like MiG-25RBK and RBF are equipped with more capable electronic recce systems and have data links.

Any news? at least a screenshot would be enough.

Hi guys,

Work is continuing at a steady rate, the current focus is on the landing gear. Progress is being made on both the coding and artwork for the gear, the team is currently deep into the kinematics coding for landing gear behaviour at varying speeds (such as overspeed damage or very fast/heavy touchdowns) and the coding behind the extending/retracting animations.

That said, progress continues in the art department though at a slower rate than the coding. See below a rough, early WIP screenshot of the nose gear which is serving as a placeholder to help test the coding mentioned earlier. I hope that the level of detail that's being paid to such an early testing piece of art helps show our commitment to quality on the art front.

Other areas being coded at the moment include the flaps, airbrake system and the general control surfaces to help give a basic but accurate functionality which will form the testbed to enable further integration to the rest of the aircraft systems. In other words, once they're working in a basic form, we can then use that to integrate them with their respective controls and indicators within the cockpit. Once that relationship between control, system, and indicator is established the parameters can then be further refined to increase accuracy and realistic behaviour.

That's all for now, sorry I haven't got much more to throw your way. Like all DCS projects, the main body of the work lies in the coding, and unfortunately code doesn't make for nice screenshots to show the world!

As always if you have questions about the project feel free to post them here or PM me :)

Cosmic

nice! this is the moment we feel this project is in good hands. thanks a lot

very promising! thanks a lot for let us take part! really looking forward, excited. . .

Beautiful

Awesome, thank you for the screenshot and information.

Is there any form of licence of approval for this mod from parties in Russia? Would not be the first time a mod or module would recieve some.. ahem.. pressure from Russia to stop developing.

Is there any form of licence of approval for this mod from parties in Russia? Would not be the first time a mod or module would recieve some.. ahem.. pressure from Russia to stop developing.

All information being used for this project is publicly available online. Due to the nature of this being a free mod with no intent to commercially benefit from it we are not seeking licensing or any sponsorship or similar.

We are of course very aware of the troubles faced in the past by other mods and projects (the TU-22M3 mod and the ED full fidelity modern redfor struggles come to mind) and we're being careful to minimise risks posed by doing an aircraft such as the Foxbat. We appreciate the concern though!

If we decide in the future to pursue a third party status with the Foxbat then that would of course change everything, however I must reiterate that this is NOT something we are currently interested in and as it stands we are still 100% committed to making this a free mod for everyone to enjoy.

I have to say I was mission building the last couple of weeks with the current in game MiG-25RBT and it kept standing out there in the background as an AI bird, I had it streaking across Georgia at 15,000 metres and about Mach 2.3. I had 2.5 selected but it topped out at 24??km/h or around 2.3, a little off, Mikoyan OKB rates it as 2.8 Mach at 13,000m combat loaded, mid-mission and is fairly specific about it, 3,000 km/h demonstrated with combat load at this height, further claiming it maintains the 2.8 Mach number up to 20,000 metres and higher and holds the world airbreathing zoom climb record at 123,000ft, mostly due to that high mach climb capability, titanium frontal sections and nickel steel everything else, which is a bit like Damascus Steel in a sword.

Anyway then in mission you focus on fighter action and there's this high alt MiG it avoids a Hawk fired at it from a USMC Georgian airbase assignment and heads overwater, still supersonic at low alt, continues its recon mission spying on the US carrier battlegroup escorting Tarawa to report back to the Kremlin and climbs back to stratosphere and high Machs back home, I mean I paused the mission build and just F2'd on that for a run because it was so cool. I just originally put it in there for some background traffic, but it's like a Lamborghini, you can't not check it out as much as possible.

So now I'm looking forward to this mod more than ever.

:D I suppose as some form of payment we could all send you amateur porn. Something really kinky, like action figure xxx. Leia expresses her true feelings for He-Man at Castle Grayskull but you might have to fill in the dirty bits, they're normal action figures dude.

I do have questions:

Will the "runaway rpm, engine over speeding phenomenon, without careful engine management by the pilot between speeds 2.5 Mach and 2.8 Mach," to paraphrase Belyenko upon pilot operation of the MiG-25, be modelled? Belyenko said the issue was so serious that airspeed was normally restricted to 2.5 Mach without special permission to exceed this for the sortie, such as a live fire missile interception or other emergency worthy of sacrificing the aircraft.

IIRC Mikoyan OKB validated the American 1970s folklore of the MiG25RB-series being capable of airspeeds in excess of Mach 3, when the Israeli incident is cited. A Russian MiG25RB with Egyptian markings was clocked by Israeli ground stations in the early 70s, exceeding 3.2 Mach whilst fleeing Israeli F4 Phantoms over Jordan. Russian reports mention this incident and remark that the engines experienced over speeding and were destroyed during the flight, the airframe exceeded maximum 2.83 Mach Mikoyan design limit

and so was also scrapped upon landing, most likely all the aerials, sensors and various avionics systems would be damaged and melted by friction, Mikoyan advises aerials and cockpit framing begins melting beyond 2.83 Mach and therefore is unsafe, although the aircraft is capable of exceeding it.

Is the modelling for the pilot view of flying the aircraft planned to include some of the high mach mythology of the Foxbat such as these remarks?

A: Any interaction of having the MiG-25RBT in the base game of DCS, whether as payware or freeware requires a license.

but why though? there's already an AI version of the RBT. does AI aircraft require licensing to be put in the main game?

Looks awesome, definitely bookmarked.

:)

I'd love to have a look at your avionics code if you wouldn't mind sharing

I'd love to have a look at your avionics code if you wouldn't mind sharing

Do you mean an open source project. This will be awesome in a 3rd gen aircraft like this iconic one.